reflections on life as an house sitter and perpetual traveller

The Limits of Money and the Kindness of Strangers

The Limits of Money and the kindness of Strangers

At some stage of your journey, you will experience the limits of money. Yes,it buys you the soft pillow and nutritious lunch overlooking the city, lake or sea, but as Blanche Dubois perspicaciously observed ” We are all dependent on the kindness of strangers”. Money has its limits, a facilitator of comfort,it can blind you to your own resourcefulness, whisper sweet nothings which lead you to judge others and isolate you from their potential companionship. It soothes over inherent human vulnerability and the need to reach out to others who can teach you about the hidden aspects of the town, city or country. Whoever we are and however much we have or have not, we need each other .

For confirmation that you too are not crazy:

“Yes it is easy to get lost in the streets of Fremantle, well, they don’t make sense at all!”

For commiseration on the weather:

“But wait ! you should have been here last month! The rain/heat/thunderstorms/ cyclone/flood! “

We need each other both for our similarities and differences and not just at a superficial level.

We all need that free-flowing communication. An immediate, purposeless, instant swelling up of a verbal tide that has its own rhythms and may breach on a new shore of friendship or ebb into the sand of a natural completion. There are times when I’m the talker, the seeker and other times the listener. Those times can be precious and priceless when you know that the person, your fellow human on their own unique journey through life, needs to offload and share their story, which may have been rejected by others or reveal the pain they have suppressed just to make it through the day. Sometimes you’re chosen because you’re an outsider passing through, sometimes it’s because they feel you won’t judge them.

But you have learnt something and the knowledge can be a passport to a deeper experience of life which you would have easily overlooked. Money cannot buy this awareness, no matter how much you shell out.

Boofy from Port Macquarie

I'm a house sitter, writer and healer who travels around Australia minding beautiful pets and houses, exploring parts of the country some for the first time, having fun, adventure and experiencing joy in living lightly.